Reduce the unnecessary vast antibiotic use in agriculture including a ban on those “highly critical” to human health

Improved surveillance of the spread of drug resistance

Paying companies $1bn (£0.7bn) for every new antibiotic discovered

Financial incentives to develop new tests to prevent antibiotics being given when they will not work

Promoting the use of vaccines and alternatives to drugs

The review said the economic case for action “was clear” and could be paid for using a small cut of the current health budgets of countries or through extra taxes on pharmaceutical companies not investing in antibiotic research.

Lord Jim O’Neill, the economist who led the global review, said: “We need to inform in different ways, all over the world, why it’s crucial we stop treating our antibiotics like sweets.

“If we don’t solve the problem we are heading to the dark ages, we will have a lot of people dying.

“We have made some pretty challenging recommendations which require everybody to get out of the comfort zone, because if we don’t then we aren’t going to be able to solve this problem.”

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